


In Your Room

by liluye (mouselini)



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Humor, M/M, confident fenris rules, it's a hotel but okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-05-09 04:52:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5526047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mouselini/pseuds/liluye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot of dumb, shitty things have happened to Garrett Hawke, but falling in love with the escort who likes to lay his chin on his bar every night is probably the dumbest, shittiest one of all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even gonna bother making this one original. It'll be GREAT.

There's a thumbprint on the outer rim of a hanging snifter and it reminds Hawke of his dog. It has a wrinkly snout, spiked ears, a nub for a tail, two paws instead of four because nobody could win them all-

Mostly, though, it resembles an amorphous puddle of piss and that's exactly what he has to look forward to when he gets home.

“Jesus fuck,” he mutters, slinging a rag over his shoulder and pulling down the glass. “Happy Friday, Garrett.”

It's actually Tuesday, but Tuesday's his Friday because he's the only employee with mandatory weekend duty since the other bartender decided to up and leave for Europe one muggy August morning. No notice, no warning, just a group text that said “Made it to Barcelona” and the subsequent erasure of every single one of his social media accounts.

Except Instagram. According to Merrill, because Merrill's low self-esteem compels her to check her blog sixty-two times a day, Cullen was most recently spotted dragging a copper mug along the spokes of an iron gate, asking, in six broken languages that were not Catalan, for funds to get his passport reinstated at the Portuguese Embassy.

Weekends equal tips so Hawke has little reason to complain, but he complains anyway because he loves to see the look on Aveline's face when she remembers how much shit she has to put up with every day. She's actually scowling at him _now_ , perched like a condor atop a ladder halfway across the foyer, her hands wrapped around an enormous Christmas ornament that she's been trying to hang since Hawke clocked in twenty minutes ago. It catches the glow of the chandelier, a shiny, genetically-enhanced pomegranate that Hawke guarantees would break the floor if dropped, and his whole bar is littered with scarlet spectra that he playfully swats with his towel.

“It's bigger than your head,” he calls out, peering at her through the glass he's wiping. “Redder, too.”

A few hotel guests frown at him from their lounge chairs, their meeting clearly disturbed by the rolling timbre of his voice. He eyes them for a second and swears to himself that they've been there since his last shift, because they have, then he shrugs, holds the snifter to the light and hangs it back up on the rack.

“The tree looks nice,” he says even louder, conversationally. “I like the red and gold thing. Makes it feel like Hogwarts in here.” The suits stop their meeting to glare at him again. “Need some help or...?”

“No, thank you,” Aveline's response is so professional that Hawke has to cover his face when he laughs.

“You sure?”

“Yes, Garrett.”

She absolutely needs help. She's what, like 5'7, and the ladder she's on barely puts her past the midsection of the fucking tree, so Hawke throws down his rag and slides himself through the gap in the counter with a painfully helpful smile splashing all across his face.

Aveline rolls her eyes when he approaches, steps off the ladder and blandly hands him the ornament while grumbling something about five-star professionalism, to which he says “we're four-star, three and a half if you go on Yelp” and hangs the ornament on the nearest patch of unblemished green he sees.

They end up spending a good portion of the afternoon snidely criticizing each other's lack of festive taste, which leads to the systematic dismantling of half the stupid god damn tree, including the gaudy star at the top that almost fucking _touches_ the marble reliefs along the vaulted hotel ceiling. By now the business-casual guests have packed their MacBooks and stomped off to the cafe at the other end of the lobby, where poor Merrill's trying so fucking hard to close on time, and Hawke kind of feels bad for her because 30-something men in pinstripe suits never tip her well.

Of course, when Merrill throws him her puppy eyes and pouts in that sad marshmallowy way that she pouts, Hawke quickly ducks behind the bar and makes her favorite cocktail out of well vodka and sour apple schnapps, setting the martini glass down on a coaster beside an empty Styrofoam cup on the off chance she needs to catch a bus.

_Speaking of catch..._

Hawke sends a glance over to the clock, another over at Aveline – who's graduated to tampering with the stringed lights, for fuck's sake, really? – and a final one to the large glass doors at the mouth of the foyer before he snatches the nearest Cab and opens its cork with a _pop_.

Smirking, he remembers that this wine's one day away from turning to vinegar, so he shakes a bright silver paint pen because he likes the sound of the moving cartridge and writes “NO SELLY” in big letters across its label. He sets the bottle down on a cocktail napkin at the far left side of his counter and folds his hands expectantly.

No Selly means no-sell, and no-sell means Hawke _can't fucking sell it_ , whatever “it” happens to be. Day-old sandwich? It's his dog's dinner. Five-minute-old latte because the guy Merrill's serving decides to go to the bathroom immediately after placing his order? It's supposed to be soy, and now it's being divvied by the wait staff because the customer is calling corporate.

Red wine could theoretically last like five days in the right environment, and The Redcliffe is _absolutely_ the right environment, but high rental rates make legroom for high product turnover and therefore the window for Cabernet closes at two days, sharp.

So obviously, being the bartender – the only one, as far as he's concerned, though he knows Isabela would stab him if she ever heard him disregard the importance of her daytime shifts again – Hawke takes complete advantage of the system and stockpiles all the “expired” beer, wine, Bailey's, you name it, into a little corner crate for personal profit.

That personal profit comes in a tan, 5'9-ish-maybe, slim, black pants and-is-that-leather package with intense hair and an even more intense stare (white and green, respectively, and Hawke nods because he's a totally respectful man) that's currently piercing through the back of his neck.

Hawke smiles when he feels it. _He's early._

No Selly, particularly Wine No Selly, is Hawke's favorite day of the week.

“Cab, Fenris. You should play the lottery.”

The white-haired package scoots into his usual stool and catches the stemmed glass that Hawke expertly slides across the counter. “I would,” he laughs, a golden sound that glistens off the marble like spilled water, “but I think I just spent all my luck on this.”

“Good point. I'll play it _for_ you; you have at least two in here.”

He pours Fenris a little more wine than what's socially acceptable because hey, he can, and Fenris returns the favor by chewing on his bottom lip in a way that stretches his tattoos up his chin.

“You haven't been doing your job, then. I can't be the only one who drinks red.”

“Nope. Everyone drinks red. They should've fired me _ages_ ago.”

Hawke first met Fenris through a similar exchange, except it was Hawke's second week on bar and Fenris seemed to be too accustomed to Cullen's service to say anything more than “glass of Cab, middle grade is fine.” Hawke, with his Bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts corroding beneath a box of disposable bags for his dog's shit, had taken it upon himself to comp Fenris for his wine under the entitlement of being the ex-manager at a way busier, way less classy establishment for the past five years. “It's practically straight acid at this point,” he'd said, “don't worry about it. Consider this your lucky day.”

Fenris hadn't thanked him, then. Nor did he take him seriously, apparently, because he'd left a twenty-dollar bill on the counter on his way up to his room, which made Hawke grumpy because he was a _gentleman_ and _gentlemen_ were thanked for providing such excellent customer service.

But Fenris had reappeared later that night, Hawke remembers with a lazy chuckle. He'd reappeared looking flustered as fuck, cheeks flushed burgundy, hair pointing up in twelve different directions, a sorry look fumbling in his eye. Hawke had immediately, silently poured him the remainder of that mid-grade Cab. He'd gotten his overdue “thank you” – two of them, actually – and stood there watching Fenris's hands until the sun came up.

That was six months ago, before Hawke had realized, on a typical 4-AM-Monday-night drive back to his apartment, that Fenris is an escort.

“What trick are you turning tonight?” he asks, casually, direct, a smile tactfully placed on his lips. As usual.

Fenris doesn't squirm. “A mild one,” he says, and his glass is nearing the bottom already so Hawke uncorks the wine to fill it up again. “Black tie party for a rich girl from the south. She's meeting her estranged father tonight.”

“Ooh, fancy. Will I get to meet her or...?”

The response is “unlikely” and Hawke lets out an audible breath because he fucking _hates_ seeing the people Fenris gets hired by. Fenris always reserves a room for himself whether he stays there or not – some kind of protective measure, Hawke thinks, to ward off stalkers or, in this case, angry intimidated fathers – and most of the time he just leaves it unoccupied, returning only to collect a backpack and say a hurried _good night_ on his way out the glass doors.

Sometimes, though, Fenris fucking returns way too early in the night and most of those times he's not fucking alone, and Hawke has to watch him lead some wealthy stranger across the lobby to the see-through elevator, and then has to watch them talk _inside_ the fucking see-through elevator on their way up to Fenris's room, where they disappear for hours, and sometimes Fenris even brings them back to the bar where they inevitably order some despicably expensive highball that'll get them wasted enough to tip Hawke like $50.

Hawke tries not to count how often Fenris brings someone in, because it's seriously not fair and the least he could do is be the honest, bartending observer that he is -- but Christ, the twisting in his chest makes it really fucking hard to ignore it.

 _It could be worse_ , he thinks, and Fenris brushes a white strand out of his eyes as he glances up at Aveline buried in the branches of the Christmas tree.

Yeah, it could totally be worse. Fenris comes in at least three out of the five nights Hawke works; he could be bringing somebody back each time.

“I did not see the tree,” Fenris mutters, scooting around in his stool, bringing one leg up to rest his arm on his knee. He waves briefly at Aveline, who waves back and nearly plummets to her death. “It looks nice.”

Hawke blows his eyes open because he's convinced that they've got a satellite projection of the fucking thing from _space_ , and he points at it, mouth tilted down in disbelief as he asks, “are you fucking kidding me?”

“I didn't look up.”

“You don't _have_ to look up.”

He empties the last drops of wine into Fenris's glass even though it's full and brings out Merrill's appletini because she's pulling the gate down over the cafe and it's making a lot of noise. “I hope they turn the lobby into an ice skating rink,” he quips, and when Merrill sits down she immediately starts giggling into her cocktail.

“That's what Isabela said this morning,” she says, and then she adds “danke, Hawke” and downs the appletini in one like a 42-year-old housewife on a feelgood trip to Applebee's.

Hawke immediately feels bad for her again, and for a second he thinks it's because she's worn her hair in pigtails all day and it makes her look a hell of a lot more helpless than she actually is. “No shit,” he leans across the counter and wipes the trail of vodka that formed between her glass and arm. “You've been here that long?”

“Yes.” A yawn, and then a sleepy grin over to Fenris, who doesn't grin back because his face doesn't know how to do that to anyone who isn't serving him alcohol. “Hallo, Fenris. Are you having a nice evening?”

It's only 5, but Hawke doesn't say anything because in her defense the sky's already a layer of black ink outside the giant glass doors.

“My evening has yet to begin,” Fenris mutters. It makes Hawke scowl a little, but he manages to hide it by reminding himself that Fenris has no intentions to bring her—them— _whoever the fuck_ home tonight. “But it is about to.”

It's hot beneath Hawke's crisp shirt collar as Fenris hops out of his stool and it gets even hotter when he slides him a 20 across the counter. Hawke starts by saying “I comped you, Fenris,” and is interrupted by the normal “it's your tip,” then Hawke goes on to say “what's her name?” like he always does, pronoun variable, because he knows that the other half of the money is actually for a drink to stall the patron as Fenris gets himself ready to go.

“Anora,” Fenris responds. “She's blonde.”

“Will do. Be safe?” and Hawke drags a hand through his hair as he watches Fenris walk across the foyer, up to the see-through elevator and to the fourth floor where his room just happens to be tonight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This year's been a little weird. I don't know how often either of my stories will be updated, but I don't think I'll ever have such a lengthy absence again. Yay.
> 
> Sending major kudos to Micah ([Carrionflower](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrionflower)) for the lovely beta! <3

“Are you _kidding me_?”

It's going to snow and snow's full of shit, so Hawke doesn't hesitate to tell Bethany to go fuck herself when she texts him a screenshot of her weather app that says it's currently 63 degrees in LA. Mostly sunny with a high of 70, no chance of precipitation until next week, Merry Christmas Garrett Darling, I Made The Better Choice.

He sees his frowning reflection on his phone and he can't tell if the crack in his screen is getting bigger or if his beard just needs a trim.

“What's wrong with you?”

“Nothing.” Hawke exaggerates his glower and slides another stack of napkins across the bar, where Fenris is sitting cross-legged over a mess of silverware that he's been trying to roll for the past fifteen minutes.

Fenris says, “fine,” and focuses way too hard on rubbing out a spot on the prong of a salad fork, his brow knitted beneath a strand or two of desperately bleached hair. “Are you sure?”

Hawke considers telling him how much he doesn't like snow, and how much his dog doesn't like snow, and how shitty it was to get stranded at work mid-blizzard while his mother dropped dead in a hospital two towns over, and how Bethany's emergency flight home had to circle the state seven times to avoid the storm which meant that mom had to die in a room full of people she didn't know, probably with a cafeteria Caesar still sitting on her bedside table—but the thought's a family joke now so Hawke settles for muttering,

“Yeah. Knife on the bottom,” and plucks the fork right out of Fenris's hand to show him how to fold the stupid black napkin so its corners don't poke out. “You don't have to do this, Fenris,” he says sweetly, because he really doesn't, then he scrunches his nose up and groans “FUCK, _I_ DON'T EVEN HAVE TO DO THIS!” so loud that it bounces off the marble flooring.

“Garrett, _language_ \--”

Hawke responds to Aveline's four-star professionalism with “there's _no one fucking here_ ” and lowers his head to dodge the daggers that fire from her glare.

There are plenty of people fucking there. They're all gaping at him over their flight itineraries and outdated museum maps like anything's gonna be open past 6 on Christmas Eve, and he groans again because he's just remembered that he hasn't bought anything except a little deer statuette that he gave Merrill after she skipped up to his bar last week with a triple-shot Americano clutched haphazardly in her fists.

Ugh. Gamlen needs money, probably, and Carver's best wishes of “just drop dead” have been answered annually by 99-cent greeting cards that Hawke goes out of his way to purchase every holiday. Last year's was a leaking snow globe, the year before that a tacky sentiment about the baby Jesus that spat wafts of glitter whenever it opened. This time he's aiming for the Nutcracker and might even go the extra mile to find one that _sings_.

Bethany's the real issue. She could theoretically live without the poolside slippers she's been asking for, but her _fucking children_ are _young_ and _needy_ and don't have a clue that Uncle Garrett isn't exactly Santa Claus.

At least the little one's cute. She's barely four and likes to climb trees, dressed like some Disney princess wand and all. Hawke's already decided that she's gonna get a pair of boots to wear beneath her skirt, brown ones because fuck the discriminatory $14 difference for pink, but the older one – the one with a chip the size of Miami on his shoulder, the one who clearly takes after the wrong uncle – that one sucks. To shop for, to look after, to talk to, to be around.

“What would you get an aspiring serial misogynist?” Hawke asks Fenris, idle, pausing before he adds, “the last time I saw him he kicked me in the shin and screamed 'I'm a man'. He's five.”

Fenris replies, “Twink porn and a beating,” and the dull ache in Hawke's temple weakens significantly as Fenris shields a quiet chuckle with his hands. It's a gesture Hawke's grown quite familiar with; fond of, even, because it basically encapsulates Fenris's whole personality in one graceful flash of knuckle, white-on-brown and sharp. “Christmas is in six hours, Hawke.”

Smirking slightly, Hawke reminds him that California's two hours behind and that whatever he orders from Amazon will get to Bethany's doorstep in time for December 28th, the national Hawke holiday of Second Christmas. He spares a pleading glance to the the glass doors (still no snow), flicks a champagne flute on the overhead rack and considers asking Fenris what he wants because he's not into the idea of giving him another bottle of expired wine like he did for his birthday, but the thought disappears when a waiter drops two crates of unpolished pint glasses onto the bar like an asshole and jogs across the foyer to harass Merrill for the light roast she's about to dump out.

“Wow,” Hawke sighs, and immediately thinks _dick_ as he pulls out a polishing rag from the top shelf. Fenris reaches for it like the doll he is but Hawke doesn't let him have it, choosing instead to smear a hand across his face and say, “Why are we doing this?” while Merrill shuts the cafe gate across the hall.

The question's mostly aimed at God but since Aveline's as close to God as any of them are gonna get, she responds by stabbing her finger in the general direction of Fenris's back and hissing, “ _He_ shouldn't be doing anything!”

So Fenris quirks his head up and meets Hawke's dramatic eyeroll with a shrug. “I do not mind,” he offers lowly, looking over his shoulder where Aveline's face pokes out between the branches of the Christmas tree that she now fucking lives in, apparently, because she hasn't left the damn thing alone since she found out the hotel paid thirty grand to have it there.

Grinning broadly, Hawke repeats “He doesn't mind!” which makes Aveline turn even redder than usual, and she almost falls again because she's frantically glancing around the lobby to make sure the franchise owner isn't among the lounging guests – as if he doesn't have like, twenty-six properties to manage across the tri-state area.

 _Prick's probably nose-deep in human trafficking, anyway,_ Hawke muses, impishly darting his rag at Fenris's hands to make him smile again.

Aveline warns, “Ugh. Just don't let anyone see him,” then drops her voice to a near-mute whisper and mouths, “it's illegal,” and Hawke decides to keep the “our hotel blatantly facilitates prostitution” comments to himself like a good person, for Fenris's sake, even though Fenris is totally thinking the same thing because he's drunk-giggling into the surface of the bar.

They get the silverware done and Fenris offers to run it over to the hotel's restaurant because Hawke's an inch away from threatening the hostess with the cracked end of a broken Jose Cuervo bottle. There's a moment of laughter that echoes through the foyer and Merrill sticks her tongue out at him between a fan of single-dollar tips as she wobbles out the glass doors, and when Fenris returns it's with a perplexed squint and a basket full of roasted chestnuts that he gingerly places on top of Hawke's inventory catalog.

“They said this was for you,” he explains as he reclaims his stool. Hawke immediately pours him another glass of wine, even though he can't comp it because it's brand new and roughly $190 by the bottle. “What is it?”

Hawke picks up a chestnut and instantly drops it to the floor, shaking the burn on his fingers with a comical scowl. “Revenge, Fenris,” he sighs. It ends in a chuckle. “This is revenge.”

“I meant the wine,” says Fenris, smirking distantly. “Keep ordering it.”

“Yes, sir. Can you even afford this shit?”

Fenris shields his face again and Hawke doesn't bother hiding the hearts that spring right into his fucking eyes, so he coyly mutters, “what? It's a legit question,” and hooks an index finger into the opening of Fenris's sleeve.

“Put it on my room,” Fenris tells him, then he drops his hand into Hawke's to trace numbers into his palm, lips dark and quirked at the corner, fingernail tickling so much that Hawke has to actively resist pulling away. “816."

As much as Hawke wants to say _is this an invitation?_ – which it might be, he's asked before – he decides to peel himself off the counter and ask when Fenris's “shift” starts because it's not like him to hang out past 7 without first disappearing to pretty himself up in a suit or a wig or both.

There's a pause, then an “it technically started an hour ago” as Fenris checks his nicer phone—Hawke always forgets that he's got two of them until they vibrate concurrently and shatter something expensive—“I've been getting paid to do your side-work.”

Visibly noting the quirk in Hawke's brow, Fenris shakes his head and clarifies, “all service jobs are the same. Holidays are busy.”

It still doesn't make any fucking sense so Hawke just raises his eyebrows higher and expectantly rests his chin on his palm. The flustered look on Fenris's face does horrible things to his stomach, and he swats him with a rag again, reveling in the laugh that breaks out.

“I'm on call, Hawke.”

“ _Oh!_ What? Seriously?” Hawke flattens himself against the bar, trying not to stare at Fenris's hands as they push up the sleeves of his jacket. “Is that something you can just... do?”

Fenris nods, mouth tilted in a mild frown, fingers now running through his white hair and pulling out a couple of strands that he inspects against the light of an overhead chandelier. “Yes. He reserved me until midnight. I am paid regardless of his presence.”

 _I fucking love Christmas,_ Hawke thinks, combating his stupid self-satisfied smirk by saying, “does that mean I get to have you for longer?” 

“Possibly,” Fenris responds, distracted, shaking the hair out from his fingers. He pauses for a thoughtful moment before adding, “you sometimes remind me of a dog,” and Hawke lets his jaw drop because he's known Fenris for like, the better part of a year and still has no idea whether to take half his insults as insults or endearments. He once had a four-hour conversation with Merrill about that, actually, after Fenris called her some Latin phrase that roughly translates to Destitute Orphan while laying a gentle pat to her shoulder. They came to the conclusion that Fenris never really learned the Golden Rule as a child, and when they'd confronted him about it he'd looked up, startled, and literally asked them, “What is a 'golden rule'?” over the rim of his wine.

One flutter of white and a dexterous motion later, Fenris suddenly has Hawke's polishing rag in his hands. He swats Hawke with it, misses, swats again and mutters, “I had plans to return,” all while smiling and revealing his perfect teeth, white as fuck and mostly straight except for a tilted lateral incisor that Hawke swears he doesn't think about on his slow nights.

“You always return, Fenris,” he laughs, embarrassed by the amount of time it just took him to notice that Fenris also has sharp canines, arm out to block the towel from hitting him again.

“To the bar?”

Hawke see-saws his head; there's an inexplicable burning sensation on the brim of his right ear that forces him to send a paranoid glance up at Aveline. She's watching them both like a dying eagle, sliding ever deeper into the green folds of a fake fir branch with her cheeks beating the same shade of red as the ornaments around her head, so Hawke mouths _fine, okay_ and quickly takes the rag back, brushing his fingers against the tattoos on the back of Fenris's palm like he always does.

“Maybe not the bar,” he says. “I don't think you ever didn't come back though.”

When Fenris shudders, Hawke rephrases “you come back to get your shit” to make himself look like he earned his English degree even though he managed to graduate without reading a single book. Fuck the Scarlet Letter, fuck Virginia Woolf – it's a motto to live by and comes with a 3.7 GPA guarantee.

“Much better,” Fenris croons into his wine glass. He's not drinking as fast as he usually does, which is stupidly worrisome, leads to Hawke fucking _prying_ :

“Who's the lucky champ tonight?”

But just as the question's out, Fenris's less-nice phone begins to vibrate, and since Hawke obviously lost his grip on self-control seven months ago he automatically glances down at the caller ID because he knows it's Fenris's personal phone and nobody should be calling it, not even his mother.

“Er—I don't know if you've seen him,” Fenris responds distantly, rejecting the unknown caller and setting his phone aside.

Hawke continues to glare at the blank screen, waiting for the little voicemail symbol to pop up. “Is he new?”

“Not at all.” After another sip of wine, Fenris says, “I've been seeing him for almost two years. He is a favorite.”

The word _favorite_ doesn't sit right in Hawke's stomach so he snatches his rag back up and forcefully wipes away at another pint glass. He also doesn't bother hiding his scowl, but Fenris, at least, is probably used to that one by now.

“Are you jealous?”

It comes so left-field that Hawke actually drops his rag on the floor. He groans and picks it up, sprawling it over the counter before busies himself by returning the forgotten basket of roasted chestnuts to the restaurant, where two waiters are loitering at the door like the unoccupied, piece of shit assholes they are. “Who, me?” he calls over his shoulder as he slides through the opening of his bar. Fenris's phone vibrates again and Hawke suppresses a shudder as he walks away. “Never.”

“Don't lie, Hawke.”

 _Don't lie, Hawke?_ Jesus. As if Fenris's atypical giggling hadn't done enough to prove how wasted he's been all night. He was at the bar when Hawke arrived, swaying and half-listening to Isabela's story about the one time she went backpacking through the Caribbean with some guy who turned out to be fifteen years younger than she wanted him to be. She must've poured him a few heavy glasses; yeah, Fenris can be flirty, even touchy when he wants to be, but it takes a decent amount of alcohol for him to smile at the ceiling or deliberately make Hawke uncomfortable.

 _It does happen occasionally,_ Hawke muses.

Like that one time when Fenris came back from a two-day booking in Vegas with a split lip and asked, laughing, if Hawke would like to see a picture of him hanging upside-down on the stripper pole that just happened to be in his hotel room, and somehow Hawke managed to sound totally nonchalant when he said “okay, sure, lay it on me,” and was left feeling equal parts horny and horrified for his whole shift. Fenris had left him a better-than-usual tip that night and came back three hours later to apologize for being out of line.

Hawke returns to find Fenris wiping down the remaining pint glasses, which is such a Fenris thing to do, overshadow a quasi-insult with a really sweet gesture like doing all Hawke's side-work for him despite the hisses coming out of a giant Christmas tree.

Hawke can't really stop himself from asking a slew of inappropriate questions about Fenris's favorite customer, things like “how old is he” and “how often do you see him” to “how big is his dick” and “what's his favorite position”, which isn't fair, he knows, but Fenris is probably too drunk to really give a fuck about it, and besides, it's not like Hawke hasn't asked him all this before.

“He is on the longer and thinner side of average,” Fenris confides, laying his chin onto the bar and looking up at Hawke. “I'm not sure what position he likes.”

Hawke adds a splash of grenadine to the Tequila Sunrise some customer just ordered and garnishes it with an orange slice. “Seriously? You fuck him often e—err. Would you like to start a tab, sir? I abso _lutely_ can. What's your room number?”

The customer says “245” and takes his drink, and Hawke punches it in to the system before turning back to Fenris, who's smiling at him all quietly, his fingers absently running up the stem of his glass. “You fuck him often enough to know what his dick looks like,” Hawke continues, watching Fenris's thumb intently as it slides along the bottom of the bowl, tattoos changing shape every time they move beneath the light.

There was a moment during their seven-month acquaintance in which Hawke had asked Fenris why his tattoos were white. It'd been late, the end of his shift, and he'd been stealing sips from a coffee cup filled with backwash vodka that he'd spent the better part of his night preparing. He could sooner recall what he ate for lunch on the seventh day of fourth grade than the convoluted specifics of Fenris's response, but it went something like _it was accidental_ and Hawke still thinks about that sometimes, still wonders how anything that expansive and permanent could ever be an accident.

“I don't fuck this one,” Fenris corrects. He's still distantly outlining his glass, gentle fingers skating around the foot, and Hawke fills it again, only halfway this time because he doesn't want Fenris getting sick on Christmas Eve.

“What do you mean you don't fuck him?” he asks, carefully pushing Fenris's hand away to wipe up the errant drops on the counter because he forgot to peel the stupid foil off the mouth of the bottle before he poured. Fenris catches his wrist as he pulls away, so Hawke casually opens his palm for him like he's unfazed by the contact and laughs, "Is he cut or n--?"

“I gave him a blowjob, once,” Fenris says, and Hawke swears he's staring at him a little too intently right now, chin still resting on his bar, hair falling forward against his cheekbones, tan hand slowly curling around Hawke's middle finger.

“Only once?” Hawke rasps, hoarse because Fenris's thumb's beginning to circle the tip of his finger and his teeth are shining through a dim smile. He bites his bottom lip as Fenris makes a fist and lowly groans, "in almost two years?", lewdly stiffening his finger, suddenly turned on, but then another fucking customers waltzes up to interrupt the important conversation for a Cuba Libre and Hawke regretfully has to twist his hand out from Fenris's grip to grab the well rum. As Fenris's personal phone begins to vibrate again, Hawke conversationally calls out, "some favorite," and ignores the chills that bite at the back of his neck.

“I'm not sure if he even wanted it,” muses Fenris. He lifts his chin to reject the call then sips at his wine again. “He has a wife and children. I suspect he's a pastor.”

“So—” Hawke drops the Cuba Libre and a receipt down in front of the suit and bids him a half-assed Happy Holidays, “he pays you to sit at the bar?”

“Tonight. He pays for contact. The work is easy and he never keeps me the entire time.”

Hawke wants to roll his eyes and say _that's nice_ but Fenris's fucking personal phone starts to vibrate _again_ , and his green eyes are widening up a little, like he's getting concerned about it or something, so Hawke leans toward him and sighs,

“Want me to just get that?”

He doesn't exactly wait for the go ahead because he's been going ahead since September, when Fenris finally let him deal with a persistent caller who'd left a string of threats on his personal voicemail, but Fenris's nodding by the time Hawke gets to the phone anyway, and he slides the answer key across the screen, places an important hand on his hip and says, eerily chipper, "this is Garrett!"

“Who the fuck is this?”

Hawke's smile broadens. “Garrett,” he repeats, same voice, teeth showing, eyes landing on some lady in a pearl necklace a few lounge chairs away.

“Where's Fenris?”

The lady has a chihuahua on her lap. _Huh. We allow dogs?_ “I'm sorry. Who?”

“Fenris. Where is Fenris.”

 _I'm totally bringing Bailey to work tomorrow._ “I don't know who that is,” Hawke says, then drops his gaze down to a particularly nasty bruise on the underside of Fenris's tan wrist. He turns Fenris's arm over and idly runs a thumb over the splotch of purple, growing slightly uneasy by the momentary silence on the other end of the line.

“Are you fucking with me?”

Hawke slides his hand up Fenris's arm, feigning polite offense as he says, “no, sir. I think you may have the wrong number,” and nods a thanks as Fenris lifts his wrist to give him a better look.

“Where the fuck is Fenris?”

Hawke's the champion of multitasking and he takes advantage of it by knitting his eyebrows together and mouthing _who?_ at Fenris before he responds to the asshole on the line with an innocent, “I don't know what you're talking about, sir.”

The fucker instantly hangs up and Hawke grimaces a little because there was a literal _click_ , like they guy was calling from a payphone in 1997, and he tells Fenris, "You really need to download a call blocker" when he hands back the phone. He lets his hand trace over the bruises though, they go all the way up Fenris's arm, and he's afraid to push it more but feels like he has to, and thankfully another three people walk up to the bar for a round of Screwdrivers at 7:30 in the evening so he could at least pretend to be busy while he pries.

“Who was it?” Fenris asks while Hawke digs around for the orange juice that he just had out three minutes ago, god damn it—

Distracted by the fact that it's clearly gone forever, Hawke scurries toward the opening in the bar and says, “Uh, I don't know, Fenris,” in a breathless huff. “Wheeere'd the ouchies come from?”

“What did he sound like?”

 _And that was the last time we ever saw the orange juice._ “Old and crazy. Needa go to storage—”

Fenris laughs a little and it comes out sounding remarkably small, which seriously makes Hawke skip a step. He asks, “everything good?” just as Fenris says, “Your juice is next to the tequila on the second shelf,” and before his sentence is even finished, before Hawke realizes that Fenris totally just deflected his last two questions, an incoming call on Fenris's nicer phone distracts them both.

“Twenty minutes sounds good,” Fenris says to what Hawke can only assume is his _favorite customer_ , and he doesn't hesitate to chide, “tell him to meet you at the bar” as Fenris ends the call.

“No,” Fenris bites, the “stop it” is silent, and Hawke nods an apology because he knows he's being a little bit of a dick about this.

“I'll be back after he leaves, Hawke,” he tells him, standing up from his stool and stretching his arms over his head, and Hawke believes him, dropping his elbows to the bar and running and hand through his hair.

“Fenris?” He asks, quickly, as Fenris walks toward the see-through elevator with his black backpack slung over a shoulder. “Is it snowing yet?”

Fenris stands on his tiptoes and squints out the darkened glass doors at the end of the foyer. Shaking his head, he calls out, “I don't think it will,” and lets their gazes linger, heavy, before he says “I'll see you shortly,” and disappears.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to stuff/things, updates are on an extremely tentative hiatus until July. This notice also extends to the readers of I Bet You Wished. I'll probably find time to write sooner, but yeah.  
> Major shout-out to [Carrionflower](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrionflower/), who taught me the difference between "fron" and "frond" and walks as a god among men.

Merrill’s got a great way of making people smile without trying to, usually by tripping up the basement stairs or dropping gallons of orange juice all over the foyer floor. She giggles at the word “vagina”, doesn’t participate in the heady gossip typical of a full-service hotel and occasionally makes name tags out of crinkling receipt paper and scotch tape, but the best part about her is her penchant for baking desserts.

Specifically adult desserts.

“For _babycakes_ ,” she says sweetly, shoveling a liberal assortment of edibles onto a bar napkin, mouth split in the most self-satisfied grin Hawke's ever seen. “I present a macaroon, hash Oreos, lollipops that I might’ve maybe under-cooked—” she did; Hawke follows their trail with a damp rag, “–dried pineapple, this was supposed to be mochi but, um. And my usual weed brownie except with a surprise.”

Hawke laughs, “yeah? What?” and uncorks this week's No Selly before the trick of the night shows up to shit all over his good mood.

Fenris, who’s slouching Indian-style in a stool with his white hair temporarily dyed ash brown, injects, “it’s filled with crystal meth.” He mops a few crumbs off the counter with his index finger and holds it up to his lips, smirk curling slightly as he drawls, “ _surprise!_ ” and Hawke scrunches his nose in a chuckle.

Light brown looks alright, Hawke thinks, but it doesn't particularly suit him. He quickly averts his gaze when he notices the dark contact lenses Fenris has in his eyes.

Months ago, when he first started working at The Redcliffe, Fenris would show up like this and unintentionally scare the shit out of him. He'd sit at his usual spot and order his usual glass(es) of wine, and Hawke would somehow forget to listen to the specific timbre of his voice and treat him like he would everyone else, which he sort of does anyway, except “everyone else” doesn't require an effort in conscious breathing. Sometimes Fenris would hide his tattoos with makeup, other times he'd wear a long wig or color his hair, maybe slick it back with pomade. It's why he keeps it stark white, though if Hawke remembers correctly, Fenris once mentioned that he's had it this way far longer than his career.

That said, the contacts are total shit. “Who wants you to be a brunette?” Hawke asks, bothered, and Fenris snatches his hand in a silent “don't worry about it” which doesn't do much to comfort him but he lets his tan fingers sidle up his sleeve all the same.

Merrill worries the edge of her appletini with her teeth. “I hope I’m not in trouble for closing early,” she says. Her snaggle-fang pokes out from the corner of her exaggerated frown, making her look like a cat with its whiskers caught in a jar of drying syrup. “Do you think Aveline watches the cameras from her home?”

Hawke snorts, “absolutely,” light because he knows it for a fact, and he has a good laugh at the image of Aveline trembling furiously over the surveillance feed on her iPhone while blocking the entire gluten free section at Whole Foods because she’s celiac, and Hawke’s always thought she’d be happier if she’d just sit down to drink a fucking beer.

Merrill flashes him a look of unabashed terror, one that tells him that she blows her birthday candles out wishing he lied more often, and drops her head down onto her arms.

“But I c--”

Whatever she’s about to sob gets washed away in a shrilling tide of 20-something blonde women decked in penis paraphernalia and Hawke thinks, _this is my life now, this is it,_ as they all crowd around his bar.

One of them shrieks “I'M GETTING MARRIED TOMORROW!” right into Hawke’s ear, and since it’s fucking 5 o’clock on a Monday, it’s a statement that draws attention from every quiet eye in the lobby. He feigns a smile like the four-star customer service representative he is but one glance at the garnish station tells him Isabela failed to prep lime slices that morning.

“YEAHHH, GIVE US SOME FUCKING COSMOS!”

His lips twitch. Of course she wants cosmos, probably with extra limes and enough triple sec to drown the building. She’s got a shirt that says _Feyoncé_ across her tits and her Maid of Honor has a bun on the top of her head, hair fanning out in sloppy fronds that make her look identical to the palm tree he fell out of in Key West when he was 12.

He pardons himself with the same shy voice he uses to ask for no tomatoes on his BLTs and shoots across the foyer, leaving Fenris vicariously in charge of the bar like he often does when Aveline's not around. It takes a good minute to find a citrus crate in the war zone of the downstairs walk-in, but Hawke does find it, and he even manages to escape unnoticed by the pastry chef who was raised in the potato part of Europe where they find it acceptable to ask about fertility on the first date.

By the time Hawke shimmies back through his bar opening, Merrill's gone and the blondes are already singing _tonight's gonna be a good, good night_ at the top of their sober lungs. He cuts up their limes with sloppy charm and nods gruffly at two changed orders, “wait, can I get a Mai Tai?” and “oooh, what's a _peanut butter jelly shot_?”, and thankfully the till's too short to break the three hundred-dollar-bills that the bride-to-be throws at him, so he starts her a tab and smears his stinging fingers on his slacks as a goodbye.

The bride doesn't let it go because she’s the kind of person who gets married on a Tuesday. “Give me a kiss!” she hollers, pale cheeks already flushed from a single sip of orange curacao. “I SAID I’M GETTING MARRIED TOMORROW!”

“That's nice,” Fenris responds, dull. He's done Hawke the favor of hiding Merrill's treats beneath a newspaper, and the women thankfully disappear to the restaurant in a chattering string of _fuck you_ s and _what’s your problem_ s that he ignores to conversationally say, “I'm getting blown tonight."

The triple sec almost slips from Hawke’s hand on its way back to the mixing shelf. “That's nice,” he mocks, eyeing Fenris’s reaction to the reuse of his words. Nothing. “Great way to bring in the new year.”

“I suppose.”

 _You suppose._ Hawke plucks a pot pineapple from Merrill’s pile and, nibbling on its chalky edge, asks, “isn’t that your job?”

Which makes Fenris laugh behind his knuckles. They're covered in professional foundation without a trace of white to be seen. “You'd be surprised,” he tells him, smiling, and Hawke realizes that he feels slightly sick, “but most of the time they want to blow _me_.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No.”

Hawke can't decide what he's jealous about, whether it's Fenris or Fenris's profession or the implication that he's not the only one who wants him so bad he can taste it, so he swats him with his rag, harder than usual, hoping to get the makeup off his hands. 

“You get paid hundreds to get your dick sucked.”

“Accumulated hundreds, perhaps.” Fenris shrugs. He catches Hawke’s rag and uses it to wipe the lollipop juice accumulating at his elbow. “I walk away with about fifty after everything's paid off.”

Logic dictates that Hawke's next question should be _paid off what_ , or maybe even a _thanks for getting that before the counter stains_ , but instead he asks, “do you come?” without an ounce of regret until he picks up his chopping knife and sees his reflection in its blade.

“Uh. I have.”

“You _have_ or you _do_?”

“I said have.”

“So, what,” Hawke bites, and then bites his tongue because he can feel himself growing a little unreasonable. He snatches a lime from the pile and slices it in two. “Are they like, old and miserable and wanna think they can still get a hot guy begging?”

Fenris laughs again. “Basically. Your compliment is acknowledged.”

“Gross. And how much do you charge to blow them?”

“Not many people want to be blown, Hawke,” Fenris squirms, finally revealing his discomfort despite how straight he’s kept his back this whole time. It’s cute, and if Hawke’s knife wasn’t threatening to add his knuckles to the chopping line, he might’ve actually apologized before Fenris fucking added, “the ones that do would rather avoid the first three bases entirely.”

The knife clatters to the floor, hilt bouncing off of Hawke’s right boot. “Wait,” he wheezes, claustrophobic, “wait, so you fuck ‘em all?”

“No, absolutely not,” Fenris smirks slyly into his glass. His fake brown hair spills into his fake brown eyes and he hops off his stool as his nicer phone begins to ring. “And I never beg.”

Hawke fucking feels like puking, suddenly, so he grumbles a _whatever_ and snakes down the bar to make another Mai Tai for the giggling idiot in the bachelorette sash, kicking his knife across the floor on his way to the glass rack.

When he turns around again, Fenris is staring at him from the middle of the lobby, frozen and slightly alert, phone glued to the folds of his hair. Hawke watches him for a long moment like he always does, even finds himself mouthing “be safe” in spite of the lava pooling in the pit of his stomach. If Fenris's green eyes are thanking him beneath their masks, Hawke isn't able to tell.

–

By the time 10 rolls around, three impending bridesmaids are regurgitating their appetizer platter at the foot of restaurant doorway. Hawke spares a few bored moments playing jury for an argument between the wait staff and night receptionist over whose problem it is – the puke lays in equal parts over their respective wood and marble floors – before he ultimately decides that they'd be using his mop bucket, anyway, and cleans it up himself.

Fenris had reappeared about an hour ago and helped himself to Merrill's confections while his (unfortunately) handsome trick ordered a cocktail that Hawke heavy-handed in hopes of giving him a whiskey dick. The guy left a good tip. It hadn't done anything to alleviate the chill in Hawke’s spine when he saw the chandelier reflect off his golden Rolex or the smile Fenris gave him as he'd snaked his arm around his waist.

Fenris isn't the only escort that frequents The Redcliffe. Somewhere at the foundation of Imperium, Inc. – on the same plane, Hawke muses, as blood diamonds or perhaps dreamy sweatshops filled with the children of everyone who's ever made fun of his younger sister in public – is a proprietor for sex work, and the business is profitable enough to see that every active employee has a place to stay for the nights on which they work. It’s pretty fun. Housekeeping likes to gossip about it over microwaved curry in the break room.

Most of those other escorts don't stay in one place, though, and there’s talk about that too. Hawke’ll see some familiar faces every few weeks, like the orange-bobbed girl who sings or the short guy with the billowing Spanish accent or that blonde kid who wears yellow plaid pants on her off time, but they don't linger. They don't stay in their rooms when their hours are over. They don't buddy up with the bartender, they don't sit around drinking all night, they don't bleach their hair, they don’t make themselves so fucking easily noticeable on the street.

Hawke’s seen the flicker of recognition in the eyes of his patrons whenever Fenris glided by, and truthfully, it’s what bothers him most, far more than the thought of some rich silver fox on his knees.

 _That_ makes a shitty home in his hypothalamus so, naturally, Hawke decides it's time for his break. He locks the drawer, sends the “you're babysitting my booze” signal over to the receptionist across the hall, throws on his black coat and takes the secret utility elevator up to the roof where the view’s pretty great so long as it’s not raining. Carefully avoiding the death that awaits him in the form of an iced-over grate, Hawke tiptoes through mounds of snow until he reaches the ledge and digs a brownie out of his pocket.

It turns out to be meth-free and fairly sticky, made with bananas, Kahlua, and hash oil instead of eggs, milk, and butter because Merrill's vegan and believes the rest of the world should be, too. Hawke eats it all the moment he sits down, except for the lollipop Fenris had snatched on his way back to his room, the one he made a show of deep-throating before Hawke had ultimately held up his hands and said, scowling, “you know what? You can have that one.”

Tonguing the sugar off his front teeth, Hawke lights a cigarette and gets up again because it’s been flurrying all day and he underestimated how cold it’d be against his ass.

The roof’s his favorite place, even while standing. He’d discovered it back in August when he learned that the storage key gets him through all the doors that say “DO NOT ENTER” in something that kinda looks like blood. At first it was dumb shit like laundry rooms or weird-ass closets full of jars, but one day he fell _outside_ and realized he’d struck gold. He’d bustled down nine flights of stairs in childish excitement and immediately forced Merrill to take her break, then, with his hand clasped firmly to her arm, he power-walked her through the foyer and wordlessly peeled Fenris off his stool. 

The three of them had spent twenty minutes watching the sun disappear behind the cityscape. Hawke lit a spliff and Fenris finished it for him, and Merrill pulled out a stack of pastry papers from her apron and they all had an airplane-flying contest that Fenris ended up winning, of course, because everything Fenris does is extraordinary. It doesn’t matter that Aveline later wrote him up for trespassing. It was one of the few moments that Hawke’s ever felt totally at ease.

He blows smoke down to the street and fondly equates its swirling pattern to that of their folded pastry papers -- it doesn’t go very far, but his plane was the first to catch a bad wind anyway and it would’ve made him sentimental if he wasn’t already stoned out his fucking _ass_. Flicking his cigarette over the ledge, Hawke responds to a text from Varric that says “god it’s fucking cold”, another from Bethany that says “wish you were here”, ass wet with snow, throat sore with the knowledge that someone’s probably swallowing Fenris’s cum in a room below his feet.

When he gets back to the lobby, he finds Fenris sitting in his usual stool with his chin pressed against the bar. His hair’s still fucking brown -- Hawke’s chest twists at how much of a mess it is now, six different kinds of awful in twelve different kinds of angles -- but at least the makeup’s gone and his eyes are green again.

Hawke exhales, “hey you,” with his face beating warm, relieved, still in his coat and smelling like an ashtray, but he folds his arms down anyway, lays his head close enough to touch Fenris’s nose with his, looks at him like a dog locked out in the rain.

It’s the laugh that Hawke does it for, the laugh that Fenris gives him with a hand tangled loosely in his black hair. “Stop that,” Fenris smiles. Hawke moves his head whenever Fenris gives it a tug. “You work tomorrow, right?”

Hawke’s eyelids drop, lazy, as Fenris’s fingers scratch a path to the back of his scalp. “I don’t, actually,” he mewls, adding "s'feels nice," and silently thanking Aveline for hiring Merrill, because Merrill's weed is the best and her baking's even better. For a second he’s worried he’ll fall asleep on the job, but he can smell the leather on Fenris’s jacket and it’s fine, absolutely okay.

Fenris sounds surprised when he says, “you’re not working on New Year’s Eve?” He leans closer, scratching still, a long, slow, trilling path that makes Hawke feel like he's gonna purr. "Will I still see you?"

Goosebumps crawl down Hawke’s arms at Fenris’s voice in his ear, soft, and he lets out a quiet hum. He tries to explain that Isabela took his shift, that she needs the money, but he can’t find his breath when Fenris presses into him across the counter like that. Weary, Hawke drags himself off his bar, removes his coat, yawns into his elbow and uncorks this week’s No Selly before he says something that’ll ruin the best part of his night.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, get this chapter away from me.
> 
> (IBYW will update soon, too.)

On her 40th birthday, Leandra Amell developed the chilling habit of waking up in the middle of the night and calling it “morning”. Dodging the crepes-at-dawn bullet like anyone with the means to support themselves in their early 20's would, Hawke moved right the fuck out that Friday.

...But Bethany didn't. Bethany was still in high school.

_Didalingdingding, didalingdingding, didalingdingding..._

Bethany nurtured the shit out of that habit like a rosebush and never, ever let it go.

_Didalingdingding, didalingdingding, didalingdingding..._

Hawke still can't get away from it.

He sends his phone across his bed with a dramatic yawn and gets answered by Bailey's even more dramatic yawn, all sandpapery grey fur and slobbery pink tongue ready to lick his face off because he obviously doesn't feel gross enough. When he wedges his pitbull off of him, the phone rings and it's Bethany again so he reaches for it with his face buried in a pillow, Bailey's drool drying at the corner of his nose.

“ _Whaaapf?_ ”

“Happy New Y—”

“It'f nopf N'yearf yepf.”

“Why are you like this?” She's not pleased when she adds, “Garrett, it's almost two by you, get out of bed” and sneezes grandly into the receiver.

“Iowuna.”

“What's wrong with getting up early to—”

“ _B'cauff_ , Beff,” Hawke rolls onto his back and winces into his fingertips, still high. “I don't work today.”

“You don't work today?” She sounds surprised. She also sounds like she's ready to deck her children off her million-dollar balcony and it gives Hawke an incredible adrenaline rush. “On NYE?”

Oh god, Hawke thinks, jolting up in his bed because she actually said the letters N-Y-E, and that’s the last straw, really, because nobody can go from Chicago to LA that fast. “New Year's Eve,” he scrapes his fingertips down his cheek until his eye socket slides low enough to impair his vision. “It takes you less time to say New Year's Eve.”

“Okay, English degree,” Bethany giggles obnoxiously because she's an obnoxious person. “How are you not working tonight?”

“I gave my shift to the other bartender.”

Bethany snorts something like, _oh, there’s another bartender?_ and Hawke’s hard-pressed not to acknowledge the truth in that, so he stuffs his foot into Bailey's face and cringes at the licks that follow. “Yeah, Isabela, girl with the tattoo you liked. Why’re you calling?”

“I just wanted to know what my big brother’s doing,” she sings, then says, suddenly serious, “you should go out, Garrett, it’ll be good for you.”

Hawke lays back down. “What if I have plans?”

“Really?” She laughs again, but this time it ends in a _CJ, one more time and it’s mommy’s_. “You know—CJ, HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO ASK YOU TO PLEASE PUT THAT DOWN? Thank you, sweetie, I love you—You know, getting wasted in Varric’s living room doesn’t count as plans.”

“See, I was thinking more like popping a perc,” Hawke grumbles, pressing colors into his eyelid with the heel of his palm. “Maybe jerking off 'til I pass out.”

“I don’t like it when you talk like that.”

Hawke snorts, “okay, ma,” and lazily flops the phone away from his face as Bethany’s kids scream bloody murder in the background. When they show no signs of stopping, he turns onto his stomach and loudly asks, “wow, what the fuck’re you doing?”

“Nothing, we’re at the park. Are they having a thing at your hotel? They probably ar—oh, _god damn_ it—” Bethany yells something else, oblivious to the phone she’s clearly balancing on her shoulder. “Jesus, don't have kids—”

“Wasn't planning to.”

“—really should go to the thing, Garrett. Make Varric come with you or something.”

Hawke frowns and checks the time on his phone before he says, “Varric’s in Boston,” to which Bethany replies with “still? Oh,” through an audible kiss to her shitty son's shitty cheek.

“Yeah, he's there 'til the third, I think.”

“Aw. Well, I’d offer to fly you here if I knew you’d actually board the plane,” she tells him. “How's the puppy?”

Bailey, with her excellent hearing and fluent English, probably, drums her tail against Hawke's thigh in response. “Adorable,” he croons. “How's the park?”

“It's right on the water and I'm wearing a maxi dress.”

“Fuck yourself.”

“It's sleeveless.” Bethany sneezes again and blesses herself before she continues, “do something, Garrett. Go to the bar.”

“No.”

“O _kay_ , go to _your_ bar,” she bites.

Smiling, Hawke turns over and drapes an arm over his eyes. “Yeah, Beth,” he mutters. Bailey plants her nose beneath his chin in a vacant plea for breakfast. “I’m not going to work on my day off.”

 

Hawke ends up going to work on his day off, dressed in the black suit he'd worn for Bethany’s high school graduation when she somehow became the valedictorian of a class two years her senior.

He sends her a picture of himself next to the barbaric Christmas tree and texts, “lookit, beth” just as Aveline jumps off a nearby ladder to hand him a lightbulb.

“Thank God you’re here,” Aveline says, and she even looks pretty in the green floor-length dress she’s wearing, “I need you to throw this out and change a keg.” Hawke doesn't bother reminding her about how not clocked-in he is and drops the lightbulb into the nearest trashcan, ignoring her incredulous gasp of “ _no, that’s glass_ ” in favor of snatching the maintenance keys from her fist.

The hotel's brimming with elegant couples still pouring over laptop-projected spreadsheets, and, behind two looming rows of complimentary Veuve Clicquot, Isabela's flapping about like a frenetic chicken, shaker in hand, saturated with peach schnapps and grounds from the espresso machine that has inexplicably vacated its home at the other end of the hall.

“The fuck's this doing here?” Hawke asks, flicking its burning steam wand. Isabela responds with a desperate kiss to the air and a look that says _for fuck's sake there's no more Southern Comfort_ , and since he likes her more than most, Hawke bolts down to storage to fix all her problems before she quits and fucks him out of the vacation time he's been accruing for nearly eight months.

Customers pour over him as he sets up the Miller keg, customary choirs of “can I get a Mai Tai” overshadowing his declarations of “I am not clocked in” until, white flag unfurled, he surrenders the next hour filling cocktail orders to beat the climbing crowd.

“You know it's like, 19 degrees out right now, right?” Hawke mumbles, shaking a Hurricane for the Dita Von Teese-type in the sequined halter who's been compulsively checking her lipstick in a compact all night. She flashes him a matte smile and breathes, “it's for my tiny little baby” before sliding a twenty across the bar, and Hawke forces himself not to think about it when he she immediately pours the drink into a neon blue sippy cup and floats toward the elevator doors.

Thank God Isabela chooses that moment to slap him across the face. “Get out of here,” she demands, relieved, going limp in a one-armed hug. “You beautiful beast, I can handle the rest.”

More couples coagulate the counter but Hawke knows better than to ask _you sure?_ so instead he fixes himself a whiskey double, checks the garnish stock, and says,

“Give y'a hand with the bubbles later,” and bee-lines it for a sliver of unmarked territory before she can hit him again.

At 9:40 he receives a begrudging text from Carver, the ass, and at 9:42 he's approached by a group of transient bar familiars who can't get over seeing him out of context:

“He's still at Redcliffe, it ain't that weird,” one of them, Jory, announces. “How's the pup doin'?”

His wife leans forward, giving Hawke an unsolicited eyeful of orange cleavage. “The pup? How's the _boyfriend_ , that's what I wanna know.”

Hawke's really sick of explaining the situation he'd had with—honest to God, he doesn't have a clue which one she's talking about or how she knows about him in the first place—so he pulls out an excuse like “oh, we went our seperate ways” which is banal, sure, but probably true, and pats his jacket for his cigarettes under the assumption that he'd be able to exit the conversation if he just waves them high enough.

But then he hears Aveline say, “good evening, Fenris” and there's something twisting up his stomach about it, about the sudden shift in air pressure, the murmurs and mumbles, the _happy New Year to you as well, Aveline_ , the green and white infiltrating his periphery. It takes a second for their gazes to meet; three more for Hawke to realize that someone's given Fenris a class-A fucking tuxedo that he awkwardly adjusts as he approaches, sharp canine nibbling at the corner of his lip.

Fenris tears off his bowtie and stuffs it into a pocket. “You're here?” he asks, to which Hawke responds, “you're early?” and carefully stage-lefts his group of New Jersey bar flies.

“Not particularly,”

“Yeah, particularly.” Hawke takes a sip of whiskey, adding, “s'not even ten yet,” and then a “want one?” when Fenris's eyes land in longing upon his pack of Camels.

Fenris barely finishes his sigh of “God, yes,” before they're standing in the tornadic winds of Chibera, huddling together over a match that Hawke tosses into a heap of tarred snow once both cigarettes are lit.

“Wait,” he says, suddenly. “Isn't New Years, like, your thing tonight?”

“No,” chuckles Fenris. He doesn't even ask Hawke for clarification, shivering and turning his back to the cold like the bricks of The Redcliffe aren't coated in their own layer of frosty Hell. “The client needed a show of horns. It worked, so I left.”

Hawke exhales smoke, then materialized breath as he bitterly mutters, “the fuck's a show of horns?”

“Cuckolding, to a degree,” Fenris tells him, shoulders hunched.

“Sounds outdated.”

“Old money usually is.”

Well, Hawke thinks, that's true, and all the couples filing in to the hotel are monuments to it. Last he checked the rooms were at 95-percent occupancy and still going; he pays the wall a vacant thank you for the overbearing financial destitution that had forced Isabela to beg him for his shift.

Out of nowhere Fenris says, “buy me a drink.”

“I always do,” Hawke quietly reminds him, flicking his cigarette into the street. It's followed by Fenris's—orange sparks that fly farther than his, landing with a sizzle on the slush of the blue-lit street—and because Fenris is still freezing, Hawke forgets how much he doesn't want to go back inside and nods toward the oversized glass doors behind them.

There isn't any No Selly and Isabela wouldn't give it to him if there was, so Hawke settles for pouring himself another double while dodging mixed orders of Mojitos and Rum Runners from customers who still haven't realized that he's not supposed to be there. He returns to Fenris with the nicest Cabernet he could find without the use of a corkscrew (they're all in Isabela's pocket) and a shot of tequila because hey, why not, and is delighted to see that Fenris has already excavated two young women from their lounge chairs in the middle of the foyer. They push past with their noses pointed to heavens high, muttering something about assholes or maybe white hair or both.

“So this is what this feels like,” Hawke muses, stretching his legs luxuriously over the purple chaise

Fenris covers his mouth when he laughs. “Comfortable?” he asks, then throws a decorative pillow when Hawke scrunches his face in cheek approval. “What is this?”

“Cab, Fenris,” Hawke says. “Wait. It's not one of those weird Merlot nights, is it?”

“No, asbolutely not,” Fenris laughs again, this time at his knees, before he sniffs the contents of the shot glass. “Did you bring me _Patron_?”

“What, you don't like Patron?”

“You do?”

Hawke bites his lip and holds his Maker's Mark up in salute. “Nope,” he says. He's about to offer to pitch it when Fenris bottom-ups the entire shot, nose pinched, ending with a violent cough to his sleeve.

“Gross,” Hawke mutters, fond, as Fenris drains half his glass of wine to make up for the chaser he totally forgot to bring. “How do you feel?”

Reaching for a can of diet Coke that doesn't belong to him, Fenris gags, “like I'm 22 again.”

Varric calls at 11:36 with bellows of “ _happy New Year from the mo'fuckin 617,_ ” which Hawke takes as a solemn cue to help Isabela uncork all those fucking bottles of complimentary champagne occupying half the bar. Fenris helps too, as much as he can with one hand still curled around his fourth Cab of the night, until Isabela spoons him another two shots of Patron and acts surprised when he asks for a written eulogy:

“What, you don't like Patron?”

Fenris drives his chin against the surface of the bar. “No,” he slurs, “no, no, no—why does everybody think I do?”

“Your profession,” quips Aveline as she rushes by, step stool in hand.

“Offensive. I was a school teacher. Hawke, I taught school.”

Hawke smiles softly and tops off a dozen plastic flutes. God damn Fenris. “I know,” he mumbles, but Fenris doesn't hear him over the blasting music.

The countdown begins as Isabela waves off her last catering tray of bubbles. Aveline's procured a megaphone for the occasion, situated dangerously high on a brand new ladder at the end of the foyer; she speeds through the numbers ten through seven in panicked haste to align them all with Actual Time, which doesn't work because the clock behind her says it's 12:01 and Hawke's phone is already going apeshit in his pocket. He laughs, slings a tired arm around Isabela's shoulder, and clinks plastic with her as all four hundred patrons shout _happy New Year!_ at the top of their lungs.

When he leans across the bar to cheers Fenris too, Fenris's eyes light up like a thousand bright green fucking stars. “Happy one, Hawke,” he tells him, and drains his glass.

“Likewise,” Hawke says. He doesn't pull away from the fingers Fenris locks through his hair.

 

Fenris is gorgeous and Fenris is drunk, and Fenris is leading Hawke outside by the hand even though they'd both recklessly abandoned their jackets at the bar.

“What have you done?”

Hawke smirks, shivering, and points the nose of a stolen champagne bottle into the street. “Cashed in three weeks of unpaid overtime,” he calls out— _pop!_ —then mutters “ah, shit,” as his half-smoked Camel slips to the ground.

Cackling, Fenris curls around Hawke's bicep and shoves his cigarette into Hawke's mouth. “No,” he laughs, and Hawke spares a molten moment to consider how often Fenris says that word, “I meant to _me_. What have you done to _me_?”

He plucks his cigarette back, making Hawke cough mid-inhale. 

“ _What_?” Hawke chokes. He takes a long, remedial swig of Clicquot and passes it o Fenris, bubbles pouring freely out the top. “Get you drunk? That's Isabela, too. That's all on her, too.”

“Dog, Hawke,” Fenris says. There's champagne all over his tuxedo shirt but he's not shaking anymore, and he stumbles into the building wall, presses his face against its ice-covered bricks as he loudly repeats, “DOG, HAWKE.”

“Yeah,” Hawke follows him, dazed, snatching the bottle back before it falls to its death. “She's the best thing. _She's so good,_ I miss her. Happy New Year.”

Fenris slides down into a layer of snow. “Kahlua,” he slurs, and it's worrisome, the way he's rolling around like that, green eyes slit beneath the exterior blue lights of The Redcliffe. Hawke links a free hand to his elbow and hoists him up. “No, Bailey. _Bailey._ How am I all wet? I am all wet, Hawke. Hawke...”

“Hm?” Hawke murmurs, hoarse and thick because Fenris's hand's sliding up his chest, somehow heavier than the rest of his body weight. “No, fuck, c'mon, you're gonna puke like that.”

“I never puke.”

Hawke says it right back to him, increasing his voice to a falsetto that eerily reminds him of Merrill as he lugs him through the loud, extraordinarily drunk hotel crowd. The music drones on, some bullshit house DJ scratching records on the hallway balcony like a shitty 90's holiday flick, and Hawke's wayward question of “have you seen the movie 200 Cigarettes?” gets lost along the strobe lights and marble floors.

Somehow they reach the see-through elevator at the end of the hall. Somehow Fenris gets his key card to work right, room 716, somehow Hawke's leaning against the porcelain sink of an ensuite bathroom with his fingers fumbling in sloppy attempt to undo the cuffs at Fenris's sleeves.

“I thought—” he laughs, cheek pressing into the top of Fenris's lolling head. _I thought_ —but Fenris's tattooed hands catch his thumb, and he forgets for a moment that he's real—“Isn't that what you're good at, though?”

Distant, Fenris asks, “what?”

But Hawke doesn't need to repeat himself because Fenris suddenly says “no” again, “no” and “no, let me show you, I could show you,” and drags him, bottle and all, into the room with the bed he's gonna sleep in later—Christ, Fenris is gonna sleep in that bed—and Hawke can barely keep his head up as he's pushed down onto the surprisingly cheap fucking desk chair, numb echo of “you could” breathing out of him and into the fell-swept fever of Fenris's mouth.

Hawke doesn't realize how tight Fenris straddles his lap or how painful his nails are as they claw, needy, through his hair; he just knows he's kissing back and that it's a warmth so vulnerable it makes him want to die, and he catches the tip of Fenris's tongue through a sharp breath, lets Fenris nibble softly at his bottom lip before he's finally able to unclench the fists he made around the frame of the chair.

Fenris smiles against his mouth when he's pulled closer, a mild, joyous quirk that clinks their teeth together like the plastic flutes Isabela's probably bagging six floors down. He tastes like the Clicquot in all its stolen glory—makes Hawke feel like a thief—champagne with the residual hint of a soda can, and he even sounds tinny when he pulls back, laughing, to playfully swing his legs around Hawke's neck.

Hawke breathes a laugh too, automatic, fingers curling around Fenris's ankles as light catches the tattooed jut of his hipbones. “Are you kidding?” he says, more lovesick than awestruck, using his knees to balance Fenris's back when he stretches further down. He can feel Fenris's head against his shin, sees his tanned fingers link together in a lazy, endearing dance across his arched chest, and Hawke just sighs into his own knuckles because it's so much easier than admitting how much he loves the melody of his laugh or the red spot that forms on his chin whenever he rests it on the bar for too long.

He hears himself say “I'm really drunk,” instead.

“No, I am.” After a minute, Fenris swiftly pulls himself up with a wistful, nearly bored mutter of “these pants are wildly limiting,” and drags Hawke back to him, both hands clasped to his scruffed jaw, green eyes lidded, mouth already soft and halfway slack.

Fenris kisses him like it's in his nature, instinctually graceful and contained despite the liquor in his blood, like he's known the shape of Hawke's lips his whole life, has learned to keep a steady breath when licking his way between them, and Hawke just gives into it because he's spent the better part of his year trying to put together the right words for him when everything he says always comes out wrong—

So Hawke gasps it against his tongue, now. He rakes it up his back—still damp with melted snow—and sears it through kisses to his neck, lavishing the moan it elicits because Fenris never had a problem understanding him, even when he's quiet and counting the till after everyone else has gone home. He hears his name in a sudden pant, quivered and drunk, and bites harder at the skin beneath his teeth, relinquishing only when Fenris's fingers find his mouth, his tongue.

Fenris huffs a sound halfway between resentment and wonder, looks at him with eyes that paint the painful illusion that he's been waiting, too. Hawke can't stand it, his heart's drumming so loud, foreheads pressed intimately together and the space between them paved with pants, so he dives back in and takes whatever he can get, greedy and suddenly jealous of every single thing those green eyes have ever touched.

“You want me, Hawke,” Fenris tells him, hoarse, and it's so fucking obvious but Hawke immediately whispers “yes” anyway, legs subconsciously parting as Fenris's hands drop down to the buckle of his belt. At the brush of a thumb against his shaft, Hawke buries his face into Fenris's perfect neck, arms wrapped tight around the dip of his waist, vaguely sad for reasons he can't quite place but laughing still, a little, when Fenris muses “are _you_ kidding” back at him and closes both his fists around his cock.

He's mumbling into Hawke's hair, sharp canines and tilted lateral incisor brushing words on the tip of his ear, illegible, drawling whispers that give away his hidden southern upbringing—Knoxville, of all places—and his hands grow erratic as they slide up and down his dick, squeezing too tight but maintaining a blinding rhythm that showcases the prime of his expertise. Hawke lets him do it for a minute, panting, falling even deeper into Fenris's body heat and the sudden tenderness in Fenris's voice as he whispers, “you're mine, Hawke. Right?”

But there's a knock at the door, then, and Hawke forgets to nod before he shoots off the chair.

Startled, Fenris wipes his forearm across his mouth, calling out “one minute,” as he collects himself off the hotel room floor. Hawke hears the click of the door from the dark bathroom, terror building at an unreasonable rate because no one should be here, not even him—

“Hey, sorry for bothering you, Fenris,” Hawke scrapes his hands through his hair because the voice _fucking belongs to Aveline_. “Is Garrett in here?”

“No,” Fenris lies, sounding remarkably sober. “Is something wrong?”

Deep in the depths of Hell, the devil's voice rustles a “he has my keys,” and Hawke pats his shirt pocket, thinks _oh, fuck me_ , and rolls his eyes to Canada. He hears Fenris say, “I will let him know if I see him” but there's too much self-hatred happening to decipher the rest of the conversation, so Hawke just buckles his pants back up, pointedly avoiding the mirror while he waits.

When Fenris reappears, he's flushed. “You have Aveline's keys,” he informs him, mouth split in a stupid god damn sly-ass smile that does absolutely nothing to give light to the fact that he'd just spent the last ten minutes dry-fucking himself against Hawke's thigh. “I wondered what that was.”

Hawke drags his hands over his eyes as the lights turn on, wavering between frozen relief, denial and the ascending stages of a premature hangover. He doesn't move when Fenris tries to lower his wrists, choosing instead to grumble, “d'you wanna cigarette?” and looking everywhere but the burning gaze he feels on every inch of his skin.

“Yes. Hawke?” Fenris's whisper falls on his back.

Nodding to himself, Hawke opens the hotel room door. “I'm downstairs,” he says, too rough. “Put a jacket on.”


End file.
